Want to Reach Every Student? Then Stop Trying to Reach Every Student

Before you label me a heretic, hear me out. Of course our goal is to get the message of Jesus to the whole campus-students and faculty. But, I know of no other way to effectively build a campus movement apart from reaching the freshman class year-after-year. Just as the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the way to get the gospel to the whole campus is through the freshman class.

Here’s the apologetic: Freshmen are more open to new relationships and ideas than their hardened upperclassmen friends, freshmen will be there for four years to be built into, freshmen are typically easy to access, especially if most of them are living on campus, and you’ve reached the whole campus if you’ve reached four freshman classes in a row.

The start of the year is a great time to talk with your leaders about the importance of reaching freshmen and to come up with some strategies for reaching and involving them. Here are some things we always did:

-If you have a staff team, make sure they all have a goal for how many freshmen they want to share the Gospel with before your fall retreat. I always asked my men to shoot for 50 evangelistic conversations with freshmen. It was usually fewer for the women on the team because their conversations tended to go longer than ours as men. What can I say? Grunting takes up less time.

-People reaching out in freshman target areas (dorms and the like) need to know that being there and meeting freshmen is job one for those crucial first weeks.

-You want to help the freshmen bond as a class and feel special. At the end of our third weekly meeting, we had all the freshmen stand up and we led them to a nearby location for a party in their honor. At the party we had fun together, ate pizza, we heard from a couple sophomores who talked about their spiritual journey, and the campus staff leader shared some vision for what Cru is all about. We also strongly invited them to consider coming to the fall retreat.

-At the fall retreat we had a special meeting on Saturday afternoon with the freshmen where we helped them bond as a class and I talked about how they can be involved in the mission. I’ve posted a full explanation on my blog  here

-We wanted to give those freshmen who were chomping at the bit to lead an opportunity, so we created a Freshman Leadership team. We invited them to consider being a part of it at that fall retreat meeting and asked our small group leaders to recommend people. The team met with one of our staff once a month. At the meetings, half the time was spent learning ministry philosophy and skills, and the other half they spent planning ways to reach and involve more freshmen.

Okay, I’ve given you my wisdom on the subject, now it’s your turn. Post a comment and tell us your best idea for reaching and involving freshmen. For a more thorough look at the value of reaching freshmen, check out  this resource  on CruPressGreen.